Growing Calls For Statewide Wind Moratorium

State utility regulators
recently gave a boost to a wind energy developer eyeing a project in the Northeast Kingdom.

The Public Service Board
refused to dismiss the developer's application for a wind testing tower.

But the project still faces
fierce local opposition. And there are growing calls for a statewide moratorium
on ridgeline wind development.

The Public Service Board
ruling went against the town of Newark in northern Caledonia County.

The board ruled that Seneca
Mountain Wind's application for a 200 foot tall testing tower could proceed, despite
Newark's objection that the developer had failed to notify
all the adjoining landowners.

Jack Kenworthy is manager of
Seneca Mountain Wind. He says the schedule for the project has slipped. The
company hoped to have the meteorological testing equipment - called met towers
- up and running by now.

"In terms of the project
being on track, it is where it is," he says. "I think we won't get decisions on
the met towers now until sometime in the middle of the winter, which puts us in
the spring time frame to be able to actually get met towers installed."

The Seneca project and
several others proposed around the state have led to calls for a time-out on
big wind development.

Caledonia Republican Senator
Joe Benning wants a three year moratorium. Benning says he recently flew over
the Northeast Kingdom, which is already home to large wind developments in Sheffield and Lowell.

"The pilot pointed out to me
that there is no peak in the Northeast Kingdom from which you would not be able to see a power plant
if this new project goes forward," he says. "And given that this is supposed to
be the most remote region of the state, that we have the most pristine
environment in the state, and that people come here for those very reasons, I
think it's a terrible impact all around."

Benning says the Northeast Kingdom is now a net exporter of electricity. And he worries
about the cost of wind energy.

"Everybody knows they won't
get built unless they are given huge tax advantages," he says. "They have no
way of staying operating without enhanced rates to the ratepayers. And this has
gone from being a smart power policy to an obsession."

A leading utility executive
says he's also becoming skeptical of more wind projects. David Hallquist is CEO
of the Vermont Electric Co-operative based in Johnson. The co-op buys some of
the output of Green Mountain Power's Lowell wind project.

But Hallquist says more wind
and solar in the grid won't do much to reduce the state's greenhouse gas
emissions. In Vermont, he says, electric generation accounts for just 4
percent of the state's CO2 output. Transportation and heating fuels are
responsible for much of the state's global warming impact.

And wind, Hallquist says, doesn't
blow all the time. So it requires back up electricity on the grid - which comes
from generators that burn fossil fuels.

"I listened very carefully to
some of the arguments that the anti-wind folks have. Some of them didn't make
any sense," he says. "But there are a few of them that really, really hit me
hard. And the whole question about having to back up renewables with natural
gas facilities and the fact we have a low carbon footprint already.. I really
took that to heart."

But Hallquist says a
moratorium on wind in Vermont is unnecessary. He says the Legislature instead
should avoid imposing more requirements on utilities to buy renewable energy.